EDIT:Went in and Dodged/Burned a ton of areas, in order to add emphasis on the darks and lights, seeing how many people were having a hard time looking at this and figuring out what it was. Hopefully, that won't be a problem anymore.Oh, man... this is, undoubtedly, one of my most difficult and tedious, yet most rewarding, drawings that I have done in a loooooooong time.

Well, this is one BIG battle of epic proportions. It is another one of my usual My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Nintendo crossovers, featuring Mario and Twilight Sparkle facing off against Giga Bowser and a monstrously constructed Discord. I normally would've stopped at the characters, but I was persuaded into implementing a background by fellow peers of mine, and I'm very glad I listened.

Wonderful picture! Amazing. I'm wondering if I can use it for my fanfic when I submit it to EQD? It is a crossover with Mario and Twilight being the heroes and Discord and Bowser being the villians and it would be perfect!![link]

Twilight's magic is a lot more badass and powerful than the show and fans give her credit for. If she truly used her magic for battle there'd be no stopping her. This is very badass sir, I wish I could draw like this.

So, basically Mario and Twilight Sparkle would get the tar beat out of them till we had some like the rest of the mane cast showing up with the elements of harmony and Mario pulls out the Star Rod, Star Spirits, and Crystal Stars.

Only thing I can suggest is when you're drawing, (if possible/ if you have them available to you) is to use a variety of B - 9B pencils in order to bring out the darks vs lights better. Because the characters in this particular picture, blend in with the background making them harder to see.

Or you could try bringing the picture into a photo editing program and adjust the brightness and contrast.

I make these suggestions through my own experiences because I've had the exact same problem.

That seems to be a recurring problem I have in all of my greyscale drawings: I can never achieve a decent balance between lights and darks. The pencils I used ranged from HB to 6B, and I used tortillons like crazy (if you couldn't already tell). Those probably took away from the dark a bit, as did the kneaded eraser I used to create some highlights...

Yeah it's really hard to sometimes without making the darks too dark, and the lights too light. Having the right balance is key in grayscale.

But if you have Photoshop, or Lightroom, or another photo editing software (there may be some free-to-use ones online too), that could also help too if you play around with the contrast and brightness enough. But everyone has their own preferences.

Last I remember, you do have GIMP don't you? You don't really create any drawings there, but if you upload one and open it in GIMP, you will find it under the "Colors" menu labeled "Brightness and Contrast".

Time, I demand to know the amount of time it took! I remember long ago when I had time to shade in pencil like that and I was nowhere near this good. I can only imagine the huge amount of work this must've taken.